Rich pickings for the snarky columnist this week. I was almost going to go with #shirtfronting but felt that with all the horrible news around at the moment, the weekends potato scallop/potato cake jihad needed revisting.

A crispy golden choice, if the early comments are any indication. The best, as always, are from those punters who could miss the point for Australia.

Ten cents they cost. Ten cents for a lovely golden medallion of crunchy salty awesome wrapped around a fluffy white heart of perfect potato. It was a fifteen minute walk from school, down the hill and through the centre of town to the Samios family's fish and chippery, but even in the baking, lethal heat of summer it was worth it. For at the end of your trek, nirvana awaited.

86 Responses to ‘By their name ye shall know them. Potato scallops’

Posted October 14, 2014

Looking at that picture, I'm wondering if you'd like any potato with your batter.

Darth Greybeard mumbles...

Posted October 14, 2014

But the batter is the best part?

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Timbo mumbles...

Posted October 14, 2014

Imagine my surprise after moving to Tasmania in the mid nineties when I walked into a corner store and ordered three scallops. The price seemed a little high, and then I was handed a bag containing what I assumed to be three deep-fried cojones.

Posted October 14, 2014

Posted October 14, 2014

and the decrease in portion and unregulated size of 'minimum chips' offerred through out Australia should be referred to the appropriate authorities.

BigWillieStyle reckons...

Posted October 14, 2014

@ Blarkon

Another couple of weeks, and there'll be not one, but two sets of "deep fried muscles in QLD". One set owned by Toned Abs, and the other owned by V-Putz. Two sets of pliable, smooth muscles, covered by a deeply tanned epidermis. I understand the two owners will be having a series of contests to see whose muscles are the biggest and best. A swim across the Brisbane River and back, abseiling at Kanga Point with no ropes or harness, a sprint up Mt Coot-Tha, and a BASE jump off the Story Bridge.

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Posted October 14, 2014

If it's like a potato pancake (basically fried mashed potatoes), then we serve those up here in the Midwest. If it isn't, well, I'd be in for some anyway. Fried 'taters in any incarnation are good!

insomniac mutters...

Posted October 14, 2014

No mashed potato in a scallop. Just a slice of potato covered in batter and deep fried, with no regulation as to the thickness of the slice nor the surface area.My local has nice big round ones whereas others are a bit stingy - all for the same price.

FormerlyKnownAsSimon ducks in to say...

that's what i was trying to ascertain. Are the VIC ones those horrible mashed ones that sit in a bay marie for three hours and that's why they call them cakes?

I have a strict rule - if the mashed ones are served up as a potato scallop i boycott for life. In fact, if a sub standard pscal (just trying to get with the times on partner naming rules) is served up i consider throwing a lit match into the fryer as penance for their blasphemy.

yankeedog has opinions thus...

Posted October 14, 2014

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Posted October 14, 2014

On an unrelated matter, someone described the latest Abbott outpouring as "Abbott to shirt lift Putin". Giggity

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dweeze would have you know...

Posted October 14, 2014

All of this noise about cakes vs scallops was hurting my head. So, I did the only logical thing to resolve an argument - bung the words in an anagram maker. From this, the Southern variety yields these gems: Pack Tea TooA Cat Toke Op

Josh is gonna tell you...

Posted October 18, 2014

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Posted October 14, 2014

I'm not sure I understand: are we talking about a raw potato sliced, battered and deep fried? And if so, why is the batter yellow? Is there some kind of cheese-like product involved? Or is the color due to some spice such as turmeric?

Posted October 14, 2014

It may have somethign to do with the oil its cooked in, but the frozen ones, like hash browns have a yellow colour to them as well.

Darth Greybeard mutters...

Posted October 14, 2014

Large slice of potato, coated in dubious batter and fried in deeply suspicious oil, then lethally salted. The yellow colour is more likely to be antifreeze than turmeric I'm afraid. Don't worry Paul, next time you're over I'll shout you a plate of them.

The slice of potato is pre-softened, either by boiling or by freezing and thawing, possibly both. The batter probably has a bit of maize flour in it, it's not a million miles from a dagwood dog* batter. Though in the sort of places that do upmarket takes on trad junk food, a fine tempura batter isn't unknown**. Waxy potato seems to be the rule... there's nothing worse than a dry or powdery one of these. Also, then they've been sitting in a bain marie for more than a handful of hours they are somewhat horrible, but usually insanely cheap and therefore great student sustenance.

* In Australia, or at least Queensland, a dagwood dog is a sausage on a stick dipped in a heavy, maizey batter and deep fried. I assume this is what USAians refer to as a corn dog, but not having tried one of those I couldn't say for sure.

** Though in such cases you'd expect some kind of nifty additional flavouring in the layer between the batter and the potato.

yankeedog reckons...

Posted October 14, 2014

Posted October 15, 2014

Thanks, Damian. I get it now. I know what this thing is. And it has an American soul. I view Australian culture as a British/Asian/Southern European pastiche: fish, chips and beer; pasta bolognese and espresso; yum cha and green tea. But very little with an American spirit.

Until I discovered a potato slice dipped in cornmeal batter and then deep fried. Add a bit of fresh grated jalapeno pepper to the batter, pair the end result with any IPA and you may not like us, but you will understand us just a bit better. Whether you want to or not.

Posted October 15, 2014

"Add a bit of fresh grated jalapeno pepper to the batter" that sounds AMAZING, and must try to make one this weekend. What if I thow in some cheese between the potato and the batter would that enhance the experience do you think.

Posted October 15, 2014

You bet. If you can incorporate cheese into it that would be even better. The question is how to do it. Doesn't sound like it would be easy to do if the whole thing is deep fried.

But the jalapeno is easy to add to the batter.

Lulu reckons...

Posted October 15, 2014

PNB, it is possible to deep-fry anything - I know, because I've had deep-fried ice-cream.

NBlob swirls their brandy and claims...

Posted October 15, 2014

We live in such a milieu of Americanisms that at times it is hard to seperate the wheat from the crass.

Oz pop-culture is probably 50% USAnian, from Friends to Faith Hill with the remainder being Home Grown or UK sourced. I wasn't around as early as *ahem* some, but just the fact I can sing "There was a little Spanish Flea," the Dating Game theme song & Rawhide probably indicates that it has been such for decades.

Tucker wise, we have representations from USAnian Fast Food; The Colnel has hardened arteries Australia wide and the Burger King has operated under a nom de burger Jack. We have many of your breafast and snacking brands, with strange inexplicable ommitances like Reese's, Pop Tarts Tarts & Frosty Flakes who never got a look in. Root Beer is a perfectly explicable absence; it tastes like distillation of wino arse.

Our Efnic food culture is only slowly moving into the domestic sphere. As I understand it in the 50's a shrimp (prawn) cocktail was the definition of cosmopolitanism. Slowly we adopted rice and pasta dishes. Only in the last 20 or so years curries and stirfrys have appeared on the wider population's home dinner tables. I was quietly pleased to see that The Bobette was cooking herself Laska.

I don't know anyone, without Han heritage who serves green tea or Yum Cha at home.

Posted October 16, 2014

You're just wrong, Bob. And why? Because I am write.

All kidding aside (and you how it pains me to do that) being a dumping ground for American fast food and media doesn't necessarily lead to adopting American culture - unless commercial exploitation is the same thing as culture. Watching the Brady Bunch and knowing the lyrics to Gilligan's Island isn't a reflection of American culture. I know Saudis who adore American soap operas, love Kentucky Fried Chicken and buy their kids UCLA and Stanford hoodies. Culturally they are as far from American as anyone on earth.

Confusing American commerce with American culture is a common analytical error.

What I am talking about is a matter of spirit. There is an American spirit that is distinct from the Australian spirit. A world view. A shared reality. Sitting with a bunch of friends on a farm outside of Noosa eating bacon and bugs cooked on a wood fired grill and the conversation that surrounded the event was an alien experience for me. Any similar event for similar reasons in any part of the US would entail utterly different food and conversation that reflected an utterly different world view.

But a slice of potato dipped in cornmeal batter and deep fried - that is something that embodies a common spirit.Take a green tomato and do the exact same thing and watch what happens.

I am not saying you don't have divisions. You most certainly do. All I am saying is that, on a visceral level, your potato scallops speak with a voice that is understood clearly and precisely by me and you. If there are those of you who love them, there are those here who would love them here for the same reasons. If there are those of you who hate them, same thing.

Posted October 16, 2014

Posted October 16, 2014

no sounding per say, but I've seen pictures of you hanging around some of those frenchie types, showing them stuff. Teaching.....

Its suspicious I say

NBlob mutters...

Posted October 17, 2014

Is my learned friend suggesting that this form of fried food might be considered a culinary calligraphy and appreciated as a thing of beauty and evidence of a craftsperson's hand. As an Arab, Persian, Franc, Moor, Boer, Brisbanite or Davisian can look upon traditional Meiji pictograms and see beauty, despite ignorance of the actual semantic content.

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Posted October 14, 2014

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Posted October 14, 2014

Thank god someone had the guts to say it. On another note, did anyone hear the Riotinto song on Australia all over last Sunday morning. A few local kids made some really good protest music. But, as Bob Dylan said " this land is your land, this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway"

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I'm not sure exactly what the regional boundaries are - having spent growing up time in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and assimilated the dialects from all of them, it's too internal to tell them all apart. But using "potato scallop" and "sea scallop" usually seems to work as far as being sure of the distinction, so I always use the two word forms... and still I'm not 100% sure that "potato scallop" won't draw blank looks in Victoria, where "potato cake" is preferred (I'm still not sure what the correct name for a 750ml bottle of beer is in Victoria).

Sea scallops are of course what the rest of the world calls "scallops", usually inclusive of the (yummy) roe, battered, crumbed and deep fried. The batter seals the meat, which cooks in its own juices while the breadcrumbs crisp up. This means that unless you're careful, biting the end result can spray hot juices all over your shirt. So you bite carefully and suck the juice out, before biting through the delightful adductor muscle meat.

Sea scallops are usually $2 to $3 these days, while potato scallops are still usually around 50 cents*.

* Warning - I haven't actually paid that much attention to the price when ordering fish and chips for years, so this is mostly a bit of a guess

As Greybeard mentioned at Blunty the word scallop is derived from an old French word, 'escalope'. When Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de Laperouse spent six weeks in Botany Bay in Jan/Feb 1788 he and his host, John Hunter had their cooks produce a dish of "scallop'ed potatoes, immersed in a mixture of flour/egg and fried deeply as to provide a most crisp'd and enjoyable outer jack't". and again on February 4th "our cook once more produced his potato d'escallop".

This was on the north shore of Botany Bay.

Unfortunately the Comte never returned to France to spread the potato scallop message his ships being lost on reefs near Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands. Hunter however eventually became governor of the colony of New South Wales and the potato scallop remains his proudest legacy. And yes, Van Diemen's Land and what is now known as Victoria were part of New South Wales in the late 18th Century.

Thus as has been shown potato scallops originated in the brand new colony and were not called "potato cakes", "gems", "fritters" or "hash browns".

insomniac reckons...

Posted October 15, 2014

Therbs mutters...

Some say I spent some time up at the State Library rifling through our host's "Leviathan" notes. Others believe I accessed primary sources, notably the journals and correspondence of Messrs Hunter and Tench. The Boylan School believes otherwise. All I can say is that if the brave Comte had not disappeared then bonds born of gastronomy would have further enriched the verdant cultures of France and Australia.

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Posted October 15, 2014

Thanks Therbs. I hope I speak for all of us when I say that's the best comment/explanation on this subject ever. Fellow Burgers, I believe that is the last word that need be said. Potato (e)Scallops it is.

Posted October 17, 2014

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Posted October 17, 2014

Growing up south of the border meant we always called them cakes, although as Mickh and co pointed out above you must acclimatise quickly or you miss out on the experience of the scollop/cake and that is by far more important than a name. Did not that bard write a potato scollop by any other name...?

Unfortunately we struggled for years after the move to deal with the more subtle differences. Many Qld fishy proprietors would select a mass market variety which came from a large blue/white box. Unfortunately the taste and texture was not all that divergent from the receptacle from which it came.

As a employee at such an establishment, the boss did experiment with a homemade variety in fish batter. The inside was as soft as a Victorian but the batter let it down. Whilst many flocked to the new style what surprised me was that many preferred the older style. The qlders had become accustomed to the harder conditions and unnatural texture.

Each to their own.

Of course thats not the only battle of fish and chip culture across the border. Fish down south always invariably meant flake (how can that be! Its not even a fish) but in qld you get a selection with cod being the most common (and my former employee would cross label his fish wnen he ran out anyway)

Also in qld steamed dim sims are too asian so they are almost always deep fried and come in not just the small familiar variety but also a larger yellow type seldom seen down south.

Posted October 17, 2014

sibeen would have you know...

Posted October 17, 2014

The best Australian everything can be found in Melbourne; including potato fucking cakes!

w from brisbane is gonna tell you...

Posted October 17, 2014

Brisbane has the best suchi. Visitors have commented to me, Brisbane is weird because you see so many people walking around eating suchi.

I say to them, try one.

They say, Wow! This is delicious!

Yep.

I have tried them in other Australian cities. They are crap.

A friend of my daughter who is studying in Melbourne was only saying a couple of weeks ago, she loves the city but has tried every suchi dispenser she can find and has yet to find one half as good as the average Brissie suchi.

It's a Brisbane thing. The competitive baseline suchi standard is very high and you have to meet it to survive. Usually about $2.20 each. Buy 2 and it is a nice, filling, right-sized lunch.

Posted October 18, 2014

Paul, while many types of steamed or deep-fried dumplings are part of the yum cha experience, and Chinese restaurants definitely serve items with the same name which were the original inspiration, there is still a distinct, vaguely westernised or rather Australianised thing called a "dim sim", which is not really itself a part of yum cha.

The dim sim is a (usually deep fried, but sometimes steamed) mass-produced item supplied frozen by a wholesaler to a fish-and-chip-shop or other takeaway food retail business, much in the same way as the Chiko Roll, which it resembles (and with which it shares Chinese inspiration if not actually heritage). These items are on a similar level with the topical potato scallop, available in all fish and chip shops (more or less).

This is alongside generic premium fish (labelled snapper or barramundi), generic standard fish (labelled cod) and shark meat (labelled flake). On a mass market level all fish is imported, because Australian fish stocks collapsed in the late 90s and will never recover. There is essentially no Australian fishing industry now, short a few boutique upmarket suppliers and cottage-industry level stuff. It was known this would happen, steps were proposed to curtail overfishing, these were rejected as a ridiculous greenie overreaction and fish stocks subsequently collapsed. I think the collapse is still blamed on greenies stopping fishing, rather than the absence of fish, in the usual blame-the-messenger fashion. All I can say is people are idiots and I have no patience at all for this stuff.

It's definitely worth taking a look at the wikipedia articles on "dim sim" and "chiko roll" to properly understand that these are "traditional" (for values thereof that refer to established 20th century popular culture) Australian junk food. I think you'll appreciate the cosmopolitan roots to this stuff.

NBob I'm happy to be corrected or even contradicted on this topic, as I'm not exactly up to date nor especially well informed. But I've noted that local fish is in the premium 10% or less today, or else being sold on the side of the road next to the creek with a trawler moored on a falling-down jetty, or not much more advanced than that. In the early 90s my then-girlfriend's step-dad was an economist in the fed Dept of Fisheries, not exactly a greenie but .... well anyway in those days it was pretty well understood how far we could go and expect the stocks to recover in our lifetimes, and we were on track to push the intensive fishing further than that point. Myunderstanding is that all restraint dissolved in '96. This seems to explain the current situation around imports to me.

So like I say, I'd be delighted to be contradicted. But also surprised.

NBlob would have you know...

Posted October 19, 2014

FRDC suggests in 00-01

47% (by mass) of seafood consumed in Aust in domestically produced.

Almost 30% of Aust product exported, partially due to taste (Blech de mere) partially $, Australians won't pay $80/kg for trout. Ditto some of our very low value "shit-fish" exports.

The bad news:

Indoubidably some (too many) fisheries were destroyed by a perverse investment cycle. Orange Ruffy & Pacific Yellow Fin Tuna being a text book examples. When biomass is decimated, potential for stock recovery is dubious. Also we have very limited understanding of inter-species interactions. A classic example is Sea Otter-kelp-urchin relationship.

The good news.

Catch per unit effort seems to be plateauing, which Can be read as validation of management techniques. Some (SOME) of the inshore fisheries most vilified are actually the most sustainable. Classic example is some specific inshore netting fisheries: if the stocks were in decline, catches would plummet when similar effort is put in. But I see catches remain the same year in year out, same nets, same boats, same operators.

NBlob asserts...

Posted October 19, 2014

Yeah the message I got was that for many (most) specific stocks, once the threshold was hit the recovery prospect was measured in centuries. Very happy about the "good news", but is this stuff we see as nice to eat?

NBlob asserts...

Posted October 19, 2014

Inshore netted whiting. (Not trawl)

Double A++ quality if not over cooked. I think I'd trade whiting fillets kg for kg for almost anything. 100% sustainable.

NBlob is gonna tell you...

Posted October 19, 2014

While we are talking about such matters, while it is very hard to accurately asses any wild stocks & marine species to the power of N.

Estimates are Humpbacks got down to 6% pre-whaling stocks. Now back up to 70%, apparently %100 by 2030.

When I see that $2.4 billion figure, I'm tempted to assume we're looking at more than a few stocks that are already dead and we're just squeezing the last drips out. But that's next to $12 billion for beef. Not sure where that fits with expectations.